Related papers: Structure of the Universe
Research over the past 25 years has led to the view that the rich tapestry of present-day cosmic structure arose during the first instants of creation, where weak ripples were imposed on the otherwise uniform and rapidly expanding…
The standard theory of cosmic structure formation posits that the present-day rich structure of the Universe developed through gravitational amplification of tiny matter density fluctuations generated in its very early history. Recent…
The large-scale structure of the Universe formed from initially small perturbations in the cosmic density field, leading to galaxy clusters with up to 10^15 Msun at the present day. Here, we review the formation of structures in the…
Observations made using large ground-based and space-borne telescopes have probed cosmic history all the way from the present-day to a time when the Universe was less than a tenth of its present age. Earlier on lies the remaining frontier,…
An introduction to modern theories for the origin of structure in the Universe is given. After a brief review of the growth of cosmological perturbations in an expanding Universe and a summary of some important observational results, the…
Over the past century, rooted in the theory of general relativity, cosmology has developed a very successful physical model of the universe: the {\em big-bang model}. Its construction followed different stages to incorporate nuclear…
The cosmic inflation hypothesis, its relation to fundamental theory on the beginning of the universe, and the light that both shed on how the various elements and their relative amounts came into existence. The fundamental factors…
Every society has a story rooted in its most ancient traditions, of how the earth and sky originated. Most of these stories attribute the origin of all things to a Creator - whether God, Element or Idea. We first recall that in the Western…
An approach to modelling the universe based on the requisites of gravitational energy. This model is explained as it relates to the stages of the universal life cycle and the continued existence of the universe as it is known today. The…
Galaxy formation is at the heart of our understanding of cosmic evolution. Although there is a consensus that galaxies emerged from the expanding matter background by gravitational instability of primordial fluctuations, a number of…
The observational evidence points to the origin of our Universe from a big-bang explosion, the normal matter we observed can be well explained by the particles created in the strong and weak interacting phases of the early universe. The…
Before the universe there was nothing, absolute nothing. That is the starting point because it is the only starting point that requires no cause, no explanation nor justification of its existence. But, that starting point has two…
This article reviews the prevailing paradigm for how galaxies and larger structures formed in the universe: gravitational instability. Basic observational facts are summarized to motivate the standard cosmological framework underlying most…
The `Little Bangs' made in particle collider experiments reproduce the conditions in the Big Bang when the age of the Universe was a fraction of a second. It is thought that matter was generated, the structures in the Universe were formed…
The initial conditions of our Universe can be summarized on a single sheet of paper. Yet the Universe is full of complex structures today, such as stars, galaxies and groups of galaxies. In this review I describe the standard theoretical…
The evidence for a Big Bang origin of the Universe is truly compelling, though its cause remains a complete mystery. As the cosmic spacetime is revealed to us with ever improving detail, however, we are beginning to refine the range of its…
The nature of the first generation of stars in the Universe remains largely unknown. Observations imply the existence of massive primordial stars early in the history of the universe, and the standard theory for the growth of cosmic…
One hundred years ago we did not know how stars generate energy, the age of the Universe was thought to be only millions of years, and our Milky Way galaxy was the only galaxy known. Today, we know that we live in an evolving and expanding…
Evolution needs long times and large numbers of samples or species. Our finely tuned physics can therefore not have evolved during the fast changes of a single Big-Bang universe, but the cosmological scales for time and for the number of…
A relativistic cosmological perturbation theory for the Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker universe is presented that explains the masses and formation times of the first structures in our universe. First, it is shown that, without a…